


Over the Windowsill

by Polkadot_Paragua



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Baseball, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Disability, Erik is Crushing Harder than a 12-year Old Girl, Friendship/Love, M/M, Which is funny because he is a 12-year Old Boy, adolescents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 07:10:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2260602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polkadot_Paragua/pseuds/Polkadot_Paragua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>not-the-mutant-youre-looking-for posted a prompt a while ago:</p><p>"I just need an au where Erik is playing baseball with a few friends around the neighborhood when he hits a home run and the ball crashes through someone’s window, so he goes to apologize and meets a paralyzed/terminally ill Charles confined to his bed. And cue the friendship that turns into more than just a friendship while Erik helps Charles with thing he can’t do because of said disability/sickness"</p><p>Sorry for grammar as I am not a native speaker and also wrote this in like light speed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Over the Windowsill

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment. I might even consider a second chapter ;)
> 
> And again, this is a ficlet for this prompt:
> 
> "I just need an au where Erik is playing baseball with a few friends around the neighborhood when he hits a home run and the ball crashes through someone’s window, so he goes to apologize and meets a paralyzed/terminally ill Charles confined to his bed. And cue the friendship that turns into more than just a friendship while Erik helps Charles with thing he can’t do because of said disability/sickness"
> 
> Which yu can find here:
> 
> http://not-the-mutant-youre-looking-for.tumblr.com/post/57766274804/i-just-need-an-au-where-erik-is-playing-baseball

It could have been a wonderful day with the sun shining and the trees rustling ever so slightly and the laughter of the children if it hadn’t been for the shrieking of a boy with a mouth as dirty as his clothes as the colour of his blond but ashen hair.  
If it hadn’t been for the clashing of glass in the distance in the first place.

„Are you fucking insane crashing that thing into the rich guys direction you imbecile?!“ His cheeky face with the pointy nose and the huge mouth filled with two raws of way more teeth than a usual twelve year old had could have been the prototype of a stray, and his tone didn’t give the impression of any loving parent ever teaching him some rules of society, either.

You might have thought him one of the orphans being fed by any of the other boys’ mums ramdomly these days at summer, when all but food you needed was a bed in the hay hidden at some farmers barn down there, yet he yelled:  
„My father’s sure gonna kill me if I don’t bring back that ball, it’s my brother’s fucking thing!“ He made a curious little jump that might have been meant to look angry, but rather made him seem helpless, nearly anxious.  
The other boy stood there, hanging his shoulders, looking terribly sorry hidden under defiant hidden under confident.  
„I’m sorry, couldn’t know it would go off that way! Maybe… We just pretend it never happened…? I have another ball at myplace, we could just fetch it and -“  
But his sheepish stumbling was interrupted by the other boy again, who shook his head angrily and growled: „No! No, I have to get it back! Anyways: Why of all people should these stupid rich guys have my brothers baseball! They are the motherfucking last ones in the world to deserve having it!“  
There was a last spark of doubt in his eyes burning up nearly invisibly, then in died and gave room for something bigger: The determination of a soldier knowing there would be a good sound flogging in store for him if he didn't go and man up right now, claiming back what was his.  
Behind him the other boys held their breath for a second looking up at the huge castle like building. In their minds, it might as well have been a prison, or a vortex, eating up everything that was stupid enough to step inside: humans, baseballs, cats, even the light.  
You would barely ever see anyone going in or out there other than the scarily beautiful blond woman wearing that expensive dresses or furs, being chauffeured around like she owned the world, and then again, if she owned that place, she might as well own the world, too.  
„Don’t be stupid, Erik, you’re gonna get yourself into trouble!“, the batter yelled and made a few steps after him but stopped soon. It was perfectly clear none of the other boys would even go as close as a hundred yards to the haunted walls of this house.  
„So what!“, Erik grunted back, running, but it didn’t sound like a brave souldier anymore. It sounded like a grumpy and slightly intimidated young man who just saw that the object he was looking for had destroyed a window on the second floor and was therefore waiting for him right after a twenty feet climb up the ivy covered brick walls.  
He stopped his jogg right under the window, looking up with the desperation of someone who knew it was climb or die now. He cast a glance back to the others, but they were far away now and didn’t seem any good help, anyways.  
His breath hitched a bit when he tilted his head back estimating the distance to the windowsill. Then he took a deep breath, gulped, and took hold of one of the thick mesh of plant, tugging it testingly. It didn’t give way even one inch.  
And that was when he knew he shouldn’t worry about how to get up but rather about what lay up there waiting for him, other than his brother’s baseball that was.  
He was a hint out of breath when his fingertips touched the windowsill, first only tentatively brushing the underside of it, then after a second of doubt gripping the edge. He held onto it for a few moments, holding his breath and listening carefully, but there was no sound except for the rustling of the wind in the distance. And with that big of a building housing only a handful of people, if at all, how big was the chance of them being home and in that room of all rooms? Except he, or rather his friend, had just soundly crashed the window in this room and chances were it had been audible in every fucking corner of the fucking building… But then they probably would have looked out of the window trying to find the source of that wrongdoing by now.  
So he took another breath and swung back in order to build up momentum, then thrust his hand higher over the sill, grabbing an edge, carefully avoiding the broken glass, thankfully finding the other leaf had been open, but right when he let go of the ivy to pull himself up over the sill, a soft voice from inside inquiered: „What are you doing here?“, causing him to nearly either die from a heart attack or from a bonecrashing impact with the ground after a fall from the second floor. He let himself fall back down under the sill and huddled up into the ivy, this time refraining from breathing at all while his thoughts went nuts with all the possible, but all very gruelsome outgoings of this misery.  
She had seen him. She would call the police. She would tell his father. She would make him pay the window. He couldn’t. They would put him into jail. And he would not ever, ever see the sunlight again. Damn the baseball! Damn Jimmy for being the fucking worst batter ever! Damn those fucking rich assholes for having their fucking huge house right here next to the best fucking meadow to play baseball on in miles! He was screwed.  
„Hey! You!“, he heard the soft voice from inside again. „I saw you! I can hear you, too!“  
Erik looked up in surprise and apprehension, waiting to see the head of someone peeking outside the window every second now, but he didn’t, and he was sure now, too, that the voice didn’t belong to the woman. It belonged to a boy. A boy like him. There was some hope blooming inside him after all. It took him another few secons, but then he took heart and swung his right arm up the sill and pulled up, gripping the inner edge of the sill with his left, then pulling all the way until his torso came to rest lying on the window. He nearly fell headfirst to the floor, as there wasn’t a real windowboard at the inside as he had expected, but gained back balance quickly, then looked up.  
The room was dark compared to the bright sunlight outside. It was so big that even with the windows open the sun couldn’t quite reach the other side of it.  
And on this other side, there, at the wall, in the biggest bed that Erik had ever seen, there sat a boy under the most covers that Erik had ever seen, and looked at him like he was the first ever human being that boy had ever seen in exchange.  
His eyes were ocean blue and wide and curious, but anxious, and his halflong, hazel hair was tidily combed out of his face, which was as white as his sheets and looked like he had never seen sun nor dirt in his whole life. There lay a book open carelessly fallen next to him on the duvet, while his hands were occupied clawing the duvet like it was for his dear life, knuckles white with excitement.  
„Who are you?“, the boy insisted, with what seemed like the most effort he could muster, but his voice would never quite stop sounding soft and gentle, although he probably tried to sound confident and demanding.  
Erik felt incredibly misplaced, hanging there over the window edge, dirty face, dishevelled hair, in this room with this boy who was so… delicate.  
He cleared his throat uncomfortably, then swung a leg over the edge and carefully put his worn shoe on the floor, glass cracking under his sole, then the second one, then he straightened his back und raised a hand to push his hair back, not that it was long enough to ennoy him, but rather he felt this was the least he could do to not look completely out of place in this tidy room.  
„Erik“, he said, lower than he usually would. „My name is Erik.“  
„Pleasure. I’m Charles. Charles Xavier.“ To Erik’s surprise he tried a shy smile. Erik couldn’t help reciprocating it, although he had the feeling it came across pretty awry.  
„I’m sorry to disturb“, he finally said after a huge awkward silence: „But… It’s…“  
Charles suddenly let go of the duvet and leant forward a bit: „You lost your ball“, he said smoothly. It strangely occured to Erik that Charles didn’t know how to treat him any better than the other way round, and that he was even kinder than usually in an attempt not to scare him off like a savage animal.  
„Yes“, he said. „Yes. I’m sorry, I, my friend…, we -“  
But Charles raised the other hand to wave him off, then shook his ball to his direction. „I heard you, outside. It was an accident. You need it back. Just take it. Here.“ He leaned even closer and Erik got a strange feeling looking at his movements. They were a bit jerky, a bit clumsy, and he just couldn’t bring himself to imagine this boy was anything even close to clumsy.  
„What’s the matter with you?“, he asked instead of taking the ball, and looked the boy up and down til the hem of the duvet where his hips and legs were hidden, and he couldn’t help but imagine there was nothing down there. No legs, like a mermaid, or maybe nothing at all. Maybe he was just adnate to his bed. Maybe… He felt sick thinking about this, and also incredibly childish. He shook his head and disguised it as an attempt to get his bangs out of his forehead, then stepped closer until only a couple of feet to the boys bedside.  
„What do you mean?“, the boy asked mellowly, but Erik saw how the free hand nearly invisibly crooked in his sheets again.  
„Just… Why are you here? Whis the sun and everything, why don’t you play outside? With your friends, like… everyone! Don’t you ever leave the house? I’ve never seen you before! We never knew there even lives a kid in here!“  
The boy, Charles, turned his face to the window for a second, then he looked up to Erik, who had taken one last step, and now felt awfully aware of the way he had broken this person’s peace by crashing his window, then invading his home, and now standing here over him looking down on him demanding something back that kind of looked like perfectly at home in this person’s little white hand. Like all his life this baseball had just waited for the opportunity to get to this boy who possibly had never ever before touched a fucking baseball.  
„I can’t play outside“, the boy said, and now his eyes looked the widest and bluest he had ever seen in his life. He didn’t think he had ever seen someone looking so honest and sincere, and all only with his eyes. Maybe thatswhy he was even more shocked when Charles pulled the duvet from his legs and explaned: „I am paralysed. I can’t leave the bed other then in a wheelchair.“  
And Erik stared. He stared at the small, skinny white legs looking out of short striped pajama trousers, with the perfectly still little feet that didn’t even flinch when the last bit of the duvet was pulled from them. Everything about him looked fragile. No muscle. No fat. Nothing but white skin and bones.  
He swallowed heavily. Then slowly forced his gaze back up to the white face of the white boy.  
„So“, he croaked with unease: „You don’t play baseball, do you?“  
The instant he had said it out loud he felt like slapping himself, but it was too late. But unexpectedly, Charles smiled friedly.  
„No. I don’t. I have never touched a baseball.“  
„Yeah“, Erik said, lamely, with a hint of heavy, painful guilt hitting him: „That’s what I thought.“  
„Well. Now I have. Thank you“, Charles said, still smiling, then reaching out to him with the baseball. „Here. Take it. You need it back.“  
Erik stepped from one foot to another.  
„Actually…“, he said, turning around for a second – he could see the chaotic blotch on the grass out there that was his friends waiting for him, probably making bets on his success – then returning to Charles’ watery eyes.  
„Actually, no. You should have it. I broke your window. You will probably get into trouble because of me. You should at least keep it.“ He tried a smile, as Charles had given him one, but failed.  
„Believe me, I won’t have any trouble. She probably won’t even notice.“ He grinned a bit: „It might get a bit cold at night, though.“  
„I’m terribly sorry“, Erik suddenly blurted out. „Really, I, this is so… We were out there, thinking of nothing, behaving like little assholes, and we broke your window, and then I had nothing better to do than talk bad about you lot and I broke into your home and now there is… you – you are here all alone and -“  
He broke off, biting his lip.  
Charles smiled again. „It’s fine. Really. I’m used to it.“  
„I feel terrible now.“  
„You don’t have to.“  
Erik shifted uncomfortably and looked back outside again. He saw Jimmy wave in the distance. „Well… Then…“  
„You should go back to your game. The others are waiting for you I expect.“  
„Uhm. Yeah.“ Erik raised his eyebrows. Charles looked at him, then at his legs. Then he pulled the duvet back over them but couldn’t quite manage down at his feet.  
„Here. Let me!“, Erik hastily said, jumping to the bedside and bending down, then he grabbed the hem of the duvet with clumsy fingers and pulled it over, carefully trying to do it as gentle as he could manage.  
„Thank you very much“, Charles said, smiling again, and Erik thought, this was probably the most smiling person he had ever seen, and this being a boy bound to a fucking bed in a fucking haunted castle with nobody to accompany him and a broken window.  
„You’re welcome. Always.“, Erik smiled. This time it worked. He was relieved. And smiled even wider. „So. Charles Xavier“, he stated finally: „It was a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for your… hositality.“  
„You are welcome, my friend.“ Erik wasn’t sure, but he could swear he had seen him twinkle just the tiniest bit, before he added: „Always.“  
And Erik’s heart skipped a beat. He didn’t know why. He only knew something very strange and very special had just just occoured here. And someone very strange and very special had just become his friend.  
„I will remember. My friend.“ He said. And smiled. And this time it wasn’t difficult at all.  
„And take care of my baseball!“, he called, before he tossed his leg out of the window. The last thing he saw, when his eyes disappeared under the windowsill, was Charles’ eyes shining bright out of the shadows of his room, following his every movement, and he felt the widest possible smile slip from him, bearing every single last one of his way to many teeth, nearly splitting his head in two.  
He was absolutely sure that never in his life he had made such a good exchange. It was worth every single beat he would get this evening and every disapproving gaze he would get from his friends uppon returning with empty hands.  
He knew he had just obtained something unestimably valuable.


End file.
